Back to Glossary
General TradingM

Market Making

The practice of continuously providing buy and sell quotes for a financial instrument to ensure market liquidity. Market makers profit from the bid-ask spread while taking on inventory risk. In crypto, automated market makers (AMMs) on decentralized exchanges perform this function algorithmically using liquidity pools.

Example

A market making firm posted bids at $29,950 and asks at $30,050 for Bitcoin simultaneously, earning $100 per round trip while providing liquidity to other traders.